


Adieu

by COBALT (nacaratskies)



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Bible Quotes, But he’s trying very hard to be straight, Character Study, Dorian Gray isn’t used to confronting actual ideas, F/M, Gay Character, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hetty Merton deserves better!, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, Philosophy, Religious Guilt, Semi redemption?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 03:04:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nacaratskies/pseuds/COBALT
Summary: Adieu; or, The last time Hetty Merton and Dorian Gray saw each other, and the things that passed between them in the orchard.





	Adieu

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought Dorian was lying to Lord Henry a bit when he described Hetty Merton. Of course there’s some truth but he just seems so tired and disenchanted, there’s no way he would be completely honest with the dude who basically ruined his life. So this is my take on their last meeting and specifically the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to Dorian’s wish to change.

Hetty Merton hitched up her nicest Sunday skirts as she made her way down to the orchard, fancy shiny black shoes nearly slipping on the grassy ground. The sun was low in the sky, the clouds whirled above her; the sky was still blue, and the birds chirped intermittently, and the summer breeze cooled her. The hours whiled beautifully and quietly away, another forgotten jewel of a perfect day.   
  
She smiled gently to herself, thinking of the man she was going to meet. And there he was, down by the old oak on the west side; reclining on a simple cotton blanket, eyes sparkling, he laughed in that curious way of his. "My dear Hetty!"   
  
Now, Hetty didn't know a lot about myths and literature, but she had heard the god Apollo shone like gold, and Narcissus was as beautiful as the flower he became and twice as useless. She was convinced, in an absent-minded way, that this man was more beautiful than any Greek ideal. She had been a simple farm girl, before; but this man arrived, all silks and satins and capes, tailored red waistcoats, scarlet lips and glittering eyes, murmuring golden compliments along her work-worn knuckles as he kissed her hand in greeting; he had spoken softly of Beauty and Art, and she had felt as if a whole new world was opening to her.   
  
She adjusted her brooch self-consciously. It was the nicest thing she owned, real gold, with delicately crafted wrinkled petals. It almost looked like a real daisy that had been transformed into gold with a magic touch, so delicate was the craftsmanship.  _ “It pales in comparison to you,” _ Dorian had said on the day they met, after he had pressed it into her palm and kissed her quick,  _ “here, take it.” _ She was wearing her nicest things, even her pretty ribboned skirts that she usually only wore on Sundays, but they were mismatched at best and didn't compare to his well-tailored silk suit at all. He lifted one languid arm in greeting, rings glittering in the late afternoon sunlight. The dusty smell that always accompanied late evening sunshine in the orchard accented the view of him, and Hetty felt her lips curl into a smile. She rushed to meet him. "Dorian," she cried, "you look wonderful today!"   
  
"I always do, darling." He smiled a smile that flirted with ironic wit. "Come sit by me in the shade. The day is perfectly lovely — it is reminding me of some piece, though I don't recall which it is. Perhaps something by Schumann? Or perhaps not. Well, it doesn't matter. You look more lovely than the rarest blossom, my dear, simply ravishing." The honeyed compliment rolled off his tongue with careless ease.   
  


Despite herself, Hetty blushed and glanced away, feeling her ears heat up. "Thank you," she said, making an effort to make her accent less coarse. Dorian claimed to be poor, but he dressed and spoke like a real urban man. Hetty rather liked the air of mystery it lent. She wasn't a stupid girl, but this man was so enchanting, after all. She found that when she was around him she didn't like being a country girl; her rough common sense sometimes pulled her away from how he said Beauty should be appreciated, and she didn't want her accent to make her seem ugly.    
  
Dorian turned so she could face him as she sat down. "But of course. I only surround myself with beautiful things. Beautiful people." He reached out with a gentle hand; one ringed finger after another caressed her neck softly. Hetty felt shivers go through her from her head to her toe, and giggled, leaning into his touch. He curled one arm around her side and pulled her against him.   
  
"Do you know what I was thinking about earlier?" Hetty asked, arranging her skirts about her. She leaned back against Dorian's chest, tilting her head back until she could see him looking back down at her. He was smiling.    
  
Idly, he folded his fingers into hers. "No. What was it?"   
  
She pressed herself against him like a cat, and continued with drowsy languor, staring into the half-illuminated trees. "Have you ever thought about getting married, Dorian?"   
  
"Oh, heavens, no!" He laughed, the sound like pealing bells, like a child. "Marriage, my dear Hetty, is entirely about a combination of curiosity and dishonesty, and there's no aesthetic value to it at all. If one gets married, one loses all of their mystery. Do you understand?"   
  
"I understand," Hetty said, though she didn't.   
  
Dorian hummed, playfully, doubtfully, then turned and buried his face in Hetty’s hair. At the touch of his breath against the nape of her neck, Hetty stiffened and sighed, an electric shiver bolting through her. "You are such a pretty, naïve thing, Henriette,” he murmured. “You know, I feel that you may be my greatest hope."   
  
"Your greatest hope?" She stared at the contours of the clouds and tried to appreciate their artistic appeal as the loveliest shivers of pleasure washed over her. She didn't succeed, but she still liked them.   
  
Dorian sighed, breath hot on her neck, then he leaned back out of the shade and caught the sun in a strange way. The harsh light cast across his face made him seem almost inhuman, the sharp definition of the blackness of his eye piercing into her. Sunlight highlighted his hair and eyelashes in a golden halo, so sharp-edged in its brilliant effect and yet so delicate; it illuminated the smallest detail and abstracted every plane into deep shadows and blinding white-gold highlights until the form of his face, in all its detail, became quite strange. He closed his eyes and sighed. Hetty's lips parted in wonder. By chance this effect had been revealed to her, and she prayed she would never forget it. She had never seen anything so alien and beautiful.   
  
"My dear Hetty," Dorian was saying, "you've not known the things I've done in my lifetime. It's so hard to forget them, now. It used to be so easy."   
  
"It surely can't be anything too awful," she murmured, still staring at him as if she could etch the strange effect into her memory forever.   
  
"But it is. It is very awful. I’ve told you before that I am wicked, haven’t I?" The sunlight faded for a moment, dappled golden through the shifting branches of the trees as the breeze picked up; for a moment, Dorian was human again, and looked troubled. "I've hurt many people. Some of them are dead. One of my oldest friends, perhaps my only friend..." A raw grief came into his eyes.    
  
"Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Dorian," Hetty said, hesitating, heart thumping. Dorian had never told her about any of his friends before. This was the first she was hearing about a dead one. Perhaps he was missing him especially badly today; he was being so unusually morbid after all. "I can't imagine how that must feel,” she continued tentatively, “But you didn't kill him. It's not your fault! People die all the time. I’m sure he’s looking down on you now from a better place, and still loves you very much. He would want you to live a happy life, a good life…" She trailed off and felt rather silly saying that, as if there was a better, more poetic way of expressing what she was feeling, but she didn't know how, so she left her clumsy words hanging there.    
  
He looked down, blinked his long, long eyelashes, looked back up at her. The light intensified again; the brighter it got, the stranger it made him seem, casting the dark shape of his eyelashes across his face like the shadow of spider legs. His eyes, once dimmed with sorrow, glinted blue again. "A better place… I suppose you're right, Hetty," he said, slowly, "and this is what I mean when I say that you are my hope. You live in a beautiful world, untouched by sorrow; the utopia of art for Art's sake. You are so young, so full of potential, and so pure, unstained by sin and sorrow; you believe in everyone. That is what makes you my one hope, and what makes you different from me."   
  
"But you are not sinful or sorrowful, Dorian, and you are not wicked either, though you insist upon it so. You are Beautiful! And more to the point, you are Good!" she exclaimed. "Why do you talk in such a sad way, all of your mourning the past, you say — 'it used to be so easy' — why, it still is easy! You know I hate it so when you speak like that! You are only twenty-one, my dear Dorian, with all of your life ahead of you, and life is good, and wonderful, and Beautiful; we are both children yet; will you not let us be children together, and be in love, and foolish?" Hetty felt herself become frustrated, and took a short breath before her rising tears could betray her.    
  
He smiled; the light carved deep trenches of shadow into his cheek. "I suppose that is the better option. To forget all sorrow in favour of Beauty; to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." It sounded like a quote, the way he said it, but she didn't know where it was from. "Thank you, Hetty. I do so appreciate it when you condemn my melancholy like that. It is quite good for the artistic sentiment. However, I disagree that Goodness is more important than Beauty. Beauty is the most important thing in the world."   
  
"But—" Hetty said, "Now, let me have a moment, Dorian, you know I'm a simple girl, but I do have an argument for you. I’ve been thinking about it all week."   
  
"Oh, very well. I'll wait; get yourself sorted, Hetty, and I'll listen." He shifted and lay down, smoothing the blanket under him, and stared up at her with an almost hungry smile of anticipation, eyes illuminated bright arctic blue.   
  
Hetty stared down into the grass and pursed her lips, trying to think. Dorian's gaze bored into her, and made her feel as if whatever she came up with was going to be wrong and bad. The idea was slippery, but she repeated it to herself, and tried to picture it, and hummed a little tune as she thought. "I think," she said slowly, after a time, "I have it."   
  
"Well, go on, then."   
  
She sniffed, nervous. "Well, you are very fixated on the Beauty of the senses. I think that's a very good thing, but I don't think it's real true Beauty. Because real true Beauty would be a life that was entirely Beautiful, right? So ugly things would never touch it, and you would live in perfect Beauty forever. Does that make sense to you so far?" She stared into the forest and traced the slanting sunbeams with her eye, not looking at Dorian.   
  
"Yes, I'm following." He leaned back on one arm.   
  
"But melancholy and sin are not Beautiful."   
  
Dorian laughed. "Not sin, my dear. A morose tendency is a crime against Art, but sin is sin, and it can be beautiful like anything else."   
  
"What is sin, then? What is the definition of it?" Hetty frowned.   
  
"Something that is not morally right in society's eyes."   
  
"But what are the morals that make things not right?"   
  
"The creed of the Bible, I suppose." For the first time a moment of doubt crossed Dorian's face. "Though it is a vulgar thing, the Bible. The reverence of God is Beautiful, the cathedrals grand; the text is awfully dull, however, and at times as vulgar as any criminal…”   
  
"What if the Bible was wrong?"   
  
Dorian looked surprised for a moment, then burst out laughing. "My dear Hetty, the Bible invented the very idea of sin!"   
  
"Yes, but why? Why are the things that are sins in the Bible sins? Think about it. I'm a simple girl, Dorian, and I know that everything God writes has a reason, so there's gotta be a reason for everything that's a sin, else it would just be a list of random things that you can't do! I can't believe God would do that to us — I just can't. So I've been thinking. What if sin is about hurting other people?"   
  
"That doesn't make any sense, dear Hetty. What about sodomy? Sodomy isn't hurting anyone, but it is a sin."   
  
"Well — I don't know! It's a theory," she said, sighing. "But I just feel it. Think about incest. Lots of people think that's a sin but they don't know why. But I know why. If you breed two animals that are related to each other and then breed their kids with each other enough, they'll get all messed up. Every good livestock farmer knows that. 'Least, my daddy does. I think it’s the same with humans. So maybe that's why, ‘cause it hurts the kids that they make. And maybe we just don't know why sodomy hurts people. Or maybe it did when the Bible was written but it doesn't any more. Maybe it ain't even a sin. I mean —" She halted for a moment. "I don't mean to be blasphemous, but the Bible doesn't even say anything about two men."   
  
Dorian pursed his lips, pain in his eyes. "Leviticus 18:22, 'you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.' Corinthians 6:9-10, 'do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.' Romans 1:26-27, '...in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.' Timothy 1:9-10—" 

  
Hetty interrupted him, face red with shame, holding back tears now. "Oh, stop it, Dorian, there’s no need to get upset at me! Listen — I don't know! But that's what I think. And I thought you said the Bible was dull anyway! Why have you got it all memorized?"   
  
"I don't."    
  
"Why those parts, then?" 

There was a moment of silence. Dorian's expressionless mask broke for a moment and there was alarm underneath. 

Hetty got a strange feeling and continued quickly without waiting for an answer. "Well — it doesn't matter.” She sniffled and gathered herself. “I don't know. Maybe it was bad in the Bible's time but not now."   
  
A ghost of gratefulness passed across his face and was gone. "Why not? What changed?" he asked. Hetty wasn't sure if his tone was cruel or hopeful.   
  
She sighed. "I don't know, Dorian! Maybe it does hurt people, and we just don't know why. It doesn't matter, does it?"   
  
Dorian hummed. "Alright," he said at length, "let's say it's true that sins are things that hurt people. What does that have to do with Beauty?"   
  
"Well, a real as — asthe — aesthetician —"   
  
"Aesthete," he corrected, laughing.   
  
Hetty felt her face grow red with shame. "A real aesthete wants things to always be beautiful, and darn the moral fibre of the thing, right?"   
  
"More or less." Dorian leaned in.   
  
"Well, I'm saying, that if bad feelings are ugly, then sin is ugly, because when you hurt someone, that's a bad feeling."   
  
Dorian frowned. "I'm not following."   
  
"Well — I don't know. Listen, if you hurt someone, and you know they're hurting because of you — don't that make you guilty? Isn't that an awful feeling?" Hetty frowned. "D'you see? If you go 'round hurting people, even if you're covered in jewels and stuff, you're still gonna feel awful all the time, and that's gonna ruin the Beauty of your life. And besides, even if you don't feel bad about it, you're still making an ugly thing in the other person that wasn't there before. So the only way to lead a really Beautiful life is to not hurt people and be surrounded by beautiful things at the same time, and if you wanna be an artist and create nice things, you have to be good to people. It don't really matter if Society thinks it's wrong, what you're doing; only if you're really hurting people."   
  
Dorian frowned, looking pale. "But if you murder a man who is in pain," he began, speaking quickly and without his usual careless cadence, "he's not in pain anymore. Does that make his murder justified?"   
  
"But all the people that he left behind will feel awful, an' basically it's like stealing, 'cause he had all this time that he was gonna use to do lovely things like see pretty drawings and hug puppies and go cloud-gazing and eat loaves of bread fresh out the oven and fall in love and buy pretty clothes and learn new things and hear pretty songs and hug his mum and dad, and you took that away from him."   
  
Dorian looked troubled. "I see," he said softly.   
  
"Anyway — all I was gonna say is that you can be pretty all you want, but you're not really Beautiful until you're nice too, 'cause sin is ugly even if you try to ignore it, like a fruit that's rotting on the inside but shiny on the outside, which is what the Church says—" Dorian scoffed, and Hetty, reddening, continued, "—and I know you hate the Church but my point is not morality being inherently good like the Church says but — ugh! You know what I mean!"   
  
"Morality not for the sake of morality itself, but for the sake of Beauty, because in your ideology Beauty is kind and Good by necessity due to the ugliness of cruelty," Dorian Gray said softly. " _ 'For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;/Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.' _ "   
  
"Yes! Well, I wouldn't call it an ideology. But yes. Was that a quote?"   
  
"Shakespeare." Dorian lay back and stretched.   
  
"Right. So, anyways — basically Beauty can't be more important than Goodness or at least not hurting anyone, and I think the effort you gotta put into not hurting anyone is Good on its own anyway — I mean, not like you as in Dorian, but a general sort of you — but anyway Beauty can't be more important than Goodness because if something is really Beautiful it must be Good. Oh, you'd say it better, Dorian, in your clever way, but you know what I mean!"   
  
Dorian frowned, looking like he wasn't sure if he disagreed, but not like he particularly wanted to talk about it anymore. "I... suppose," he said. "And this is all based on the experience of feeling bad after you've done something bad to someone."   
  
"Well, not really. It's more about... about treating emotions as real things that can be Beautiful or ugly, and just the same way you'd try not to make an ugly painting, making an effort to not make an ugly feeling in others or yourself. Taking it seriously, sort of. Ugh! I don't know. But you understand."   
  
Dorian looked thoughtful, then slowly his expression turned empty and miserable. "I suppose so."   
  
"Are you alright?" Hetty leaned in. "You look ill."   
  
"I'm only thinking, Hetty. You remember I told you, my— my friend, he was murdered. That part about stealing time made me think of that. He was a painter, you know, a very good one. He made beautiful things, and he tried very hard to be Good."   
  
"I am sorry, Dorian, really…"   
  
"It's alright." He gazed across the orchard to the rustling trees on the far side, hair blowing gently in the wind. "That was a while ago."   
  
There was a long pause; Hetty listened to the wind whistling through the trees.   
  
"I’m terribly sorry, Hetty, but I think I will go now," Dorian muttered. "I feel rather unwell."   
  
Hetty frowned in concern, pressing her lips together. "That's good — take care of yourself, Dorian, please. You’ve been acting so strange all afternoon, I do believe you are ill."

  
They wandered arm in arm across the grass to where he had tied his horse on the other side of the orchard. The wind sighed through the trees; blossoms fell into Hetty's hair, and she laughed quietly despite herself as she brushed them off.   
  
As Dorian mounted his horse, he sighed. "You know, I feel I can be honest with you, Hetty, in the manner that I can neglect to tell you whatever I want, and tell you the truest things and the worst lies in the same sentence. Perhaps it's the country, but I feel like I’ve become a different man since I met you."   
  
"I understand," Hetty said, though she didn't, and she passed him the reins and patted the mare’s cheek. She was a magnificent creature, well-bred, muscular, dappled white and grey; her name was Perdita, and Hetty had known her since she was a foal.    
  
“I’m terribly sorry, Hetty,” Dorian murmured.    
  
“It’s alright,” she reassured him. “I can come with you if you’d like, or bring you something. My mother makes a lovely broth, I’m sure it will make you feel better…”    
  
“I’m not hungry.” Dorian’s eyes roamed from the sky to the trees to the grass to Hetty’s dress. “But thank you,” he added after a moment. “Is that the brooch I gave you?”    
  
“It is.” Hetty puffed out her chest to display it proudly, smiling. “Thank you again, Dorian, I wear it as much as I can. I do love it so.”    
  
“A daisy,” he murmured, “yes… it suits you. Keep it.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You don't have to pretend to have a London accent, you know."   
  
"But you do!" Hetty protested.   
  
"I don't pretend," Dorian said. "But you think your accent makes you sound simple, don't you? You don't need it." He paused and looked away, then sighed and looked back, shifting on Perdita’s back. "Hetty, you — you're not simple. I know you think you are but you're not. You're very clever, really. You only need to learn to be clearer and more concise, and then you could debate as well as anyone I know. Better, even.” The compliment didn't roll off his tongue effortlessly like the others. It stumbled out, shy and heart-achingly genuine; it limped its way across the space between them and nestled itself in her heart like a newborn kitten, warm and clumsy and kind, and so, so unlike him.   
  
_ You're very clever.  _ The compliment rang in Hetty's ears — she'd been called pretty a thousand times, but never clever. It felt different from anything else Dorian had ever said to her, and it spread a golden warmth inside. "Oh — thank you!" she exclaimed, feeling as if she would never be able to fully express the heart-bursting joy that his words had brought her, then — "I'm sorry if I upset you today," she added sheepishly.   
  
"It's alright. I should thank you, really. What you said today made me realize that I have to do something in order to really fix myself." Something new glimmered in Dorian's gaze. He leaned in, wrapped an arm around Hetty and pulled her close.   
  
"I'm glad it helped." Hetty blushed. Dorian’s eyes were so very close, she could see every detail of them. There was a tiny ring of darker flecks in the pattern of his iris, like little blue petals; they glimmered in the light. "What are you going to do?”   
  
He was silent for a moment, then leaned in and kissed her, clumsily, quickly, somehow both desperate and without feeling. Hetty abruptly knew that something was very, very wrong. She drew back, and was about to ask if everything was alright, but he spoke first, voice slightly hoarse with some strange emotion. "I'm leaving, Hetty, and I'm not coming back."   
  
Her heart dropped. Before she could answer, he kicked at Perdita’s flanks and snapped the reins, and the creature fled down the path at a canter.   
  
Hetty chased after him, calling his name, until she couldn't see him anymore. Her pretty skirts tripped her and tore and got muddy. She couldn't see for tears; her hairpins fell out. She tripped, fell on her knees, got up, tripped again, and finally stopped, hands scraped and face red with crying. For a long time she sat on the grass and wept and wailed. "I don't understand!" she sobbed into the silent woods. "I don't understand, I don't understand! I thought you loved me!”    
  
She stayed there until the sun touched the horizon, casting ripples of lavender light across the pale blue sky; she stayed there as an indigo shadow invaded the horizon and eventually the whole heavens, and small pinpricks of light began to show, and she became cold. She lay down on her back on the damp ground, with an empty heart and a chaotic mind, and she tried, God, did she try to see the whirling clouds as a painting, as Art, as a scene borrowed from some canvas somewhere in a gallery in London that cost a lot to get into, but all she could see was a pretty sky.    
  
Eventually the hollow feeling in her chest became numbed. She thought about going to the inn where she knew Dorian was staying for a while, but she never did. Eventually she dragged herself off the ground and trudged home in tears, and her mother yelled at her for ruining her nice Sunday skirts and called her simple.   
  
Hetty saw him again out of her window the next morning as he headed off. She pressed her face against the glass and watched him go. He glanced at her; their eyes met. He caught the morning light; she saw every detail of his eyes, expression twisted in something approximating pity, or perhaps gratefulness; he was the most beautiful thing Hetty had ever seen. For a moment she believed with all her heart that he would come running back and embrace her; then the moment was gone. He turned and walked away, the sun glinting off his hair as he rounded the bend in the road and disappeared.   
  
They never saw each other again.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh, poor guy. And poor Hetty!! I know she never even gets a speaking line but she is so underrated. All the girls are. Quick, someone write me a Sybil/Hetty Happy Ending AU crack fic!! And let me know what you think in the comments!! Y’all know I’m a sucker for comments. Aight have a nice day


End file.
